Promises to Keep, Miles to Go
by AllThatGlistens
Summary: ...Before I sleep. Snapshots of the JLU. Set in various times. Mostly friendship and action, but the romance will be canon. K for safety. Chapter 5: Apology
1. Two Miles

Hello. So, considering I'm pretty new to this fandom and am back from a very long hiatus on creative writing so any input (and I do mean ANY input) would be appreciated. These are mostly going to be friendship and actiony fics. I'll try to make some of them funny, but, like I said, it's been a while so I'll see how that goes.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own...so you don't sue.

She watched him unashamedly--what use was there pretending now?--as a young nurse wrapped his ankle up in a tight bandage.

Wally gave her A Look and asked "What happened?"

"Plane crash. Well, the plane crashed because the missile found its mark, so…"

"Um…Where?"

"Kasnia. It was…" Diana's entire countenance--from the skin around her eyes to her arm muscles, appearing to long for something to strangle--as the last word left her lips. "An _accident_. They believed our craft to be South Kasnian, when in fact we were there to deal with a tip on an assassination attempt on the princess."

She shifted slightly to become more comfortable with her position on the bed she had decided she would not occupy for more than an hour.

"OK. Get well soon, Wondy." With no small amount of embarrassment, he presented her with some flowers that showed every step of their light speed journey.

She gave him an appreciative grin and leaned forward to enjoy the scent which had not suffered in the least. "They're lovely, Wally."

He laughed softly at that. "Not really, but…I would have gotten some for Bats too but…"

He appeared pleased at the spasms of amusement that danced around her lips and then hugged his friend gently around the shoulders. An alarm, somewhere, went off and he waved at her before shooting out of the infirmary.

Clark, who had previously been giving the Dark Knight's ankle a stern look, courtesy of X-ray vision, now drew closer to her bed.

"And?"

"You were listening?" She asked, half-jokingly.

Clark had the decency to look vaguely embarrassed but then nodded. "And?"

"Well, I jumped out to try to keep the plane in the air--we were going over the guerilla camp so we couldn't just crash. I got a good grip on it and managed to set it down gently…" She gestured vaguely towards his ankle, actually a far lesser injury than he was initially guaranteed, "Enough. Unfortunately, I was so busy with the plane that I didn't notice the eight sentries who proceeded to open fire. I managed to block about half the shots but…" She gestured towards the increasingly-useless bandages that wound themselves around her torso, arm, calf, and thigh.

Clark looked her up and down, then nodded slowly. "Diana, I just wanted to make sure you were all right so…" He edged toward the door.

"Hot date?"

The tomato-tinted red that went across his face was answer enough. He began to leave the room, unable to shake the feeling that he had missed something and then stopped dead.. "The hospital J'onn teleported you from was two miles from that crash. Did you fly injured that badly?"

She swore in her head as she felt the blush she was fighting gain leverage over her face little by little. "No…"

"Hide?"

"There really wasn't any time."

Clark considered Bruce's ankle, not just twisted, but mangled. "He _carried_ you?"

"Yes. I blacked out about halfway there, though."

"He ran two miles on a sprained ankle, under fire, to carry you to a hospital?"

"Well, when you put it like that-" She began, the words of denial on her lips.

A rare sight appeared on Clark's face--a wicked smile. He began muttering and she caught little phrases like "Just wait 'til Lois hears" and "Does Wally know?"

He then proceeded to whistle. "Good night, Diana."

"Good night, Clark."

Bruce knew instantly what precisely he was in for as he saw Clark smirk at him on the way out, whistling "Am I Blue?" the whole way.


	2. Homecoming

Thank you so much, those of you that reviewed. I really appreciate it.

Chapter Two: Homecoming

"Um….Kara," The nurse, while she absolutely oozed competence, seemed deeply uncomfortable with the idea of issuing Supergirl an order. "Ease up, he's under a lot of stress right now."

The girl, with eyes glazed with pain far beyond anything she had imagined and focusing most of her energy on not screaming, shifted the death grip she had on her husband and reached out for something with her other hand. She seemed to have not heard the nurse.

A few seconds passed and then the noise of gravel cut through the tense scene. "Kara, stop it. You're hurting him."

Those words seemed to snap the poor girl out of her reverie and she nodded at the figure in black, forcing herself to breath deeply. Nods of approval from the other people in the room followed the beeping on the monitor slowing to an appropriate level.

At the moment, she was suffering the ultimate price for her birthplace: The only needle that could possibly give her an epidural would be one coated with Kryptonite, and since no one was sure yet was effect that particular element would have on a half-breed, they could not risk it. So Kara would be giving birth without painkiller of any kind. (She couldn't possibly know it, but throughout the watchtower every female shuddered in sympathy.)

She had arrived the night before, heavily and obviously pregnant, with Braniac 5--the father of her child--in tow.

The Man of Steel, upon seeing them, hadn't fainted. At least, that's what he claimed in response to the rumors that said he did after the security footage had gotten out. Clark had not actually realized his cousin's condition until he had enveloped her in a bear hug, only to hear her protestations that such attentions could not be "Good for the baby."

The thud that followed shortly after echoed throughout the entire satellite.

Kara finally gave up and let out a horrible shriek as another contraction wracked her body.

When she had arrived, she had immediately explained that she was not staying, and had been more relieved than anyone could have realized that there was no hope in her cousin's eyes. She had returned because the Watchtower had medical facilities suitable for her kind and this place and time was the only one that did.

Kara also had another extremely good reason for returning to the watchtower. Upon Clark's regained consciousness, she had coyly said to him, "Because yours is the only hand I can squeeze without breaking it."

His smiled at her and asked, "When is it due?"

"Midnight, tonight." She responded immediately, "And if you tell him," She gestured toward Braniac 5, "the gender I will kill you. I've kept this secret for nine months, and so will you."

Clark tried, and failed to look sheepish as he had (of course) checked the gender immediately upon getting a good look at Kara.

He draped his massive arm over her little shoulder and walked over to "meet" (intimidate) her chosen mate. He shook the boys hand a good deal harder than necessary and then chatted amiably about all the buildings he'd thrown enemies through lately.

Kara thought it was hilarious, and gave her beloved a "friendly" (bruising) punch on the shoulder.

Diana, who had insisted on being present, offered the girl her hand and didn't even wince as the loud crack of bones echoed through the tiny maternity ward in the sky. Holding hands with the two strongest people in the world, she kept pushing, however gently.

The birth was complicated for another reason. While a normal mother would have to strain her body to its limit to give birth to a baby, Kara would have to do so gently and slowly or else risk maiming or killing the infant. Thus the girl would have to prolong her pain for the sake of her child, something she had assured all present in the minutes before labor that she could and would do.

The evening before her labor several anonymous league-members (she suspected Courtney, Oliver and Dinah) had put together an impromptu baby shower.

The tea that Shayera had made could down an elephant and the gifts she was presented with ranged from mundane to disturbing, but Kara now considered that evening one of the best of her lives.

Diana had approached her, seeming pleased with herself, hauling a spear that was several feet taller and several hundred pounds heavier than herself, and proudly presented the weapon to Kara. "In case it's a girl," she had said with a wink.

Kara had had no choice but to smile and thank her.

Oliver and Dinah had mostly given her gender-neutral baby clothes, Mari a very frilly little dress, Steel some metal tinker toys, Wally an action figure of herself, Clark a cradle that he had very obviously made himself, J'onn a very small and delicate pillow, John a military-grade diaper bag, Courtney a pack of heavily reinforced bottles, Bruce a surprisingly tasteful baby blanket, Zatanna a sock monkey charmed for protection, Helena an ornate rattler and Vic two rotten oranges in a sock (she had wisely chosen not to ask.)

She had carefully packed all of these treasures in boxes and extracted a promise from her husband that he would arrange for those too to return with them.

The entire league had argued over who would be allowed to be in the room with her for the actual occurrence, but the vast majority of them had been banished to the watchtower mess hall, receiving up-to-the-second updated from Wally who ran back and forth repeatedly between the two areas.

Clark and Braniac 5 were obvious choices, the tapes from Glamour Slam had recently made their way throughout the league so no one was about to tell Diana no, and Bruce had helped design the equipment that would safe her life if something went wrong.

So they stood there, wrapped in sheets of soft paper and wearing plastic masks and hair nets. Waiting.

If it had seemed like she had spend hours in this agonizing bone-splintering pain, it was because she had done just that. The clipped comment from the nurse ("It's crowning") was the most welcome news the girl had ever received and she nearly cried from relief.

"A little more, gently, now," The nurse kept up a constant string of soothing encouragement as she readied herself at the end. Suddenly a different set of screaming joined Kara's and everyone released breath they didn't know they'd been holding.

It was wrinkled, ugly, covered with slime, and making the most obnoxious noises their ears had ever had the misfortune to come into contact with. It was also the most beautiful thing any of them had ever seen.

Bruce simply said "It's time," and before any of them could blink the umbilical cord had been sliced with a flash of red as the only indicator to what had happened. (All and all the fetus had been exposed to Kryptonite for under a millisecond.)

The nurse deftly tied the two ends and then presented Kara with her first child--a small boy.

"His name is Clark." Kara said, looking straight at Braniac who nodded--too besotted with the wriggling mass in her arms to pay any real attention. "We'll visit for Christmas?" She said.

As the mess hall erupted into cheers at the news of a healthy child, Clark's goofy smile lit up the whole room.


	3. Request

-1I really appreciate the reviews you all gave me, especially those of you who even gave me some actual critcism (You know who you are.) Sorry I'm behind on getting back to you all, I really have no excuse but I will get around to. Also, this chapter is Post-Starcrossed, The Once and Future Thing and has a direct reference to some other episode I don't know the title of.

Disclaimer: I don't own JLA, or JLU or any of those fantastic cartoons that WB has come out with.

Chapter 3: Request

He knew, of course, as soon as she swooped into the room. He turned toward her slowly, wondering in a vague sort of way what she wanted.

"Tell me about my son." It was a queer hybrid between order and plea.

He inhaled to ask a question, some insightful question that would doubtless reveal something telling about her character or future actions to him alone. "-Because." She inhaled deeply and her voice broke. "I don't think I'm ever going to get to meet him."

Shayera spent all of two seconds fighting the burning redness surrounding her eyes and the water gathering at their edges. She took a deep, shuddering breath but when she attempted to exhale, a torrent of sobs escaped her gaping mouth.

She sat there and bawled in the exact same way she fought, loudly and without shame, something she would have done in the presence of very few people. She knew for certain that while he may judge her for it, he would never ever tell her that everything would be okay, and she knew in that moment that handling that particular lie with grace was far beyond her.

He looked afraid at the presence of a crying women, but without even considering it he realize that he had reached over to pat her arm awkwardly, something he would not would not have done for anyone only a few years ago.

To his obvious horror she clung to him and proceeded to cry much harder.

Bruce sat and considered removing her in order to get back to his oh-so-vital work. He remembered the feeling of burning hot and the instinctive tremors that he could not stop at the knowledge that his death was minutes away. He remembered the image on the computer screen, of the earth being sucked away as though it was simply a cloud of gas, not billions of interconnected lives, beating hearts. He remembered Diana's rage and bravery, Wally's friendship, John's brokenness, J'onn's grim determination, and Clark's dead-set optimism.

He patted her back lightly and then waited for thirty-five minutes for her to finish crying.

Even though she covered the entire bat insignia with snot.


	4. Return

Return

For a moment she heard snatches of conversation that quickly became stolen bit of acceptance, and then she opened the door and stepped beyond the threshold. A few more phrases were uttered--they dangled awkwardly in the air--and then every single eye in the suddenly cramped room turned to her. All--she quickly counted--forty-eight eyes were watching her. Considering? Gawking? Despising?

She had fought until she couldn't stand, shouldered the cripping weight of the entire sky and screwed-up world, and never revealed so much as a hairline crack . Shayera had gone to her own personal hell and back, battling anything that would stay still long enough the whole way. But she had very little fight left in her now. She had lost something very precious, something that wasn't John, or friends, or acceptable, or a home. Her chest always seemed to ache. Her punches fell like rose petals. She was constantly almost on the verge of tears.

Suddenly she heard her own thoughts the same way a drill sergeant would and scoffed internally for pitying herself. Shayera straightened her spine carefully and forced her chin up as high as she could without getting a crick in her neck. She felt her heart pounding in the palms of her hands and began to count. One breath. Two. Good.

The eyes blinked heavily at her and that breath caught in her throat.

One step.

Diana was glaring daggers at her. Probably wished she was throwing them. Bruce was giving her the same look he did when they used to play chess. Carefully weighing her, considering even now the possibility of a second betrayal.

Two steps.

A not-so-little girl she knew only as Kara Kent wriggled uncomfortably in her seat and looked genuinely pained. Pity. Shayera would have genuinely preferred the girl had walked up and broken her jaw.

Her shoes were loud, making a steady clank-clank noise that drowned out all the tiny sounds in the room except for the roaring in her ears.

She couldn't actually see this man's face, if he had one. Mari looked her in the eye with a carefully blank look--she would neither contribute nor offer a lifeline.

Three steps. Where the hell was she headed to, anyway? It didn't matter, she decided, so long as she got there with dignity.

Oh, a small blessing. Oliver Queen was not actually looking at her, he was attempting to "subtly" scope out the blond who seemed slightly irritated. With who was anyone's guess.

Four steps. She was walking as fast as she normally did. How could she possibly still be in this cafeteria? Had time slowed?

Fate wasn't here. Neither was Aqauman. Neither of them were exceptional conversationalists, but they wouldn't have looked at her as though she was something that came out of a pimple. Wally...No Wally.

Someone spoke softly. "Are they really going to leave her..?"

Shayera would not glare, nor smile timidly. She would not hope fervently for some--no, any--alarm. She was a warrior, even in disgrace. She could take whatever they could throw at her, and then some. No one, whatever other profanities they may be applying to her person, was going to be able to call her a coward. Never.

She continued to walk, the corners of her mouth quirking up ever-so-slightly as she became increasing sure that this moment was going to end.

Suddenly, her path was blocked. Automatically, Shayera went into a defensive stance. She gave her challenger a shameless once-over. Purple outfit, womanly eyes that seemed to be attempting to telepathically communicate that their owner thought this whole thing was ridiculous. Most importantly, Shayera could have taken her but it would have been a good fight.

"Hey." The girl wasn't blinking.

"Hey..." Shayera behaved as though this woman was a small annoyance on her way to a vaguely important errand.

"Hell, if you've pissed off this many people we'll probably get along fine. Want to eat lunch with me?" Indifference radiated from her body language and her tone.

Shayera shrugged elegantly, if such a thing was possible. "I guess."

Huntress nodded in response and the two walked over to her table, which also held Shining Knight and Vigilante, who were arguing the relative merits of their armaments.

Huntress shook her head in their direction. "Men."

For the first time that week, Shayera smiled. "Tell me about it."


	5. Apology

Chapter 5: Apology

You could love your job more than you had ever loved anything, you could unexpectedly find yourself between descriptive lines of black ink on paper, you could live for the rush of knowing that somewhere, someone bad would forever be under judgmental eyes, that someone good had gotten justice.

You could walk into work every day with a smile plastered across your face, not a goofy smile like _certain_ among your coworkers, but one that's simultaneously predatory and completely content.

All of this could be, and in Lois's case, was true. But that didn't protect her from three hours of sleep, or nearly getting run over by a prick on the way to work, or the fact that Perry, nieces be damned, had screamed at her for being late to work in front of the newbies. The worst part was, he had every right to, she should have taken steps in the case of alarm failure.

Thus Lois had clamored into the elevator, a cloud of dark thoughts so obviously emanating from her person that Jimmy Olsen had taken one look, a pleasant "Good morning" bubbling forth from his lips, and quietly stepped off the elevator without a word at speeds she had never seen from anyone. Self-preservation could do that to a person.

Idly, she corrected her thoughts, she has seen those speeds from _someone_, but…He'd been busy, lately, with the League and the super villains in Metropolis had deigned to lay off for a while.

Lois promptly added that to her list of grievances, that the only way she ever saw her current interest was in the midst of crisis, and that she was smitten enough to hope for some calamity for that very reason.

She was attempting to think happy thoughts and be thankful for skin-tight spandex, just as the elevator opened and she walked out the door, idly sipping bone-tinglingly hot coffee. Or, to be completely accurate, she attempted to walk out of the elevator, and as she was doing so ran into something very large and solid that was attempting to go the exact opposite way.

The results were predictable, the coffee cup was rammed against her lips, loosening the lid adequately enough for at least three-fourths of the hot liquid to trail down the front of her white (didn't that just figure?) blouse.

Having been startled out of her reverie in a deeply unpleasant manner, she turned slowly towards the poor slob that was going to receive her bad luck ten times over, her teeth bared in something resembling a snarl.

"Oh….Sorry…Lois….I…looking…you…" Clark Kent tried to meet her eyes, failed for the briefest of seconds, and then, turning the most fascinating shade of red, began to carefully inspect the ceiling.

"I…uh…didn't see you…and" Clark continued to stammer uneasily, his face now glowing brightly enough to guide a caravan through fog. From his pocket he drew out a handkerchief and nearly began to dab at her shirt out of instinct, and then his hand halted, mere inches away from certain death. Mutely, he handed her the tiny cotton square.

For a moment, Lois was torn between amusement and anger, but anger had the head start. "Can it, Smallville," she decided on succinctness, "and watch where you're going." There. That last bit had had a sufficient amount of venom.

Briefly, she shoved him to the side, or attempted to. Then she stormed out of the elevator, and regretted the lack of doors to slam. Then she just kept walking.

Largely by means of Murphy's Law, the day had taken a swan dive after starting at rock bottom. It had been a genuinely slow news day, nothing at all was happening. Thus Lois had had to cover…a cat fashion show. She hadn't known people dressed their cats up like ballerinas or Vikings, and wouldn't have expected anyone to admit to such a habit in public. But alas…She had stood there, for a full hour, wracking her brain for any idea of how to make such an event interesting.

That part, actually, hadn't been even remotely difficult. Apparently it was a slow day for criminals, too.

"This is a hold up!" the man pulled out a gun, and aimed it at the three people in the audience… "I want your…uh…"

"Money?" One man offered helpfully.

"Yeah!" The criminal looked relieved and began to walk towards them.

"Valuables?" Inquired a thirteen-year-old girl, "Like, jewelry and stuff."

Lois sighed, heavy with the knowledge that in this city no one would even blink if the perp sprouted green tentacles. C'est la vie, and all that.

The criminal stopped for a moment, considering. This possibility had not occurred to him.

Neither, apparently, had the existence of one Man of Steel. Clark crept up behind him carefully, and knocked him unconscious with one strategically-placed blow. The man in the ski mask crumpled into his arms and, very gently, he began tying his arms together behind him.

He had to have seen her, Lois knew that. He may have lacked Bruce's paranoia gene, but he wasn't stupid, he would have scanned the obvious at least briefly to make sure no one was hurt, or armed. But, except for an incredibly apologetic and brief smile, so brief she couldn't be positive its existence had been wishful thinking, he refused to meet her eyes. Or ask how she was, or say hello… He just flushed slightly, and flew off with the would-be robber…Her dark mood grew blacker.

Her movements back at the planet, as, instead of writing an article that would actually be painful she paced around the room, could be never crossing her office.

She desperately wanted someone to blame this whole thing on, or a friend who would listen for a little while. But alas, some necessities are not afforded to the Modern Independent Woman. Lois grimaced briefly, considering this fact, but then stuck out her chin and hoisted up her shoulders. She had not made it this far to get beaten by a wretched furry creature dressed up as Cleopatra.

Lois found a sufficient opening line for her article, one that was neither outright mocking towards the entire event nor dryer than stale crackers. The words wouldn't just leap to the tips of her fingers, like they normally did, but she drug them out of her mind with that famous willpower of steel and an hour later her reward was a full thousand adequate words and some diffused anger.

Lois leaned back and yawned victoriously, stretching her arms out within the blouse that she had changed into on her way over to the show. She grinned happily, she had plainly earned a small break.

While she was mentally running through a list of possibilities, a small and meek knock echoed into her office.

"Come in," she called, though she knew of her only co-worker who would both dare to disturb her and bother knocking. She couldn't help but smirk as a still-embarrassed Clark stumbled across the threshold and kept eye-contact so vigilantly that it was, frankly, a little creepy.

"Hello, Lois." He got that much out without effort.

"Clark," She nodded in his general direction and began to "clean her nails," apparently finding much that was interesting beneath them.

Now he began to tread in dangerous waters. "About earlier…I wanted to say…That is, I really do mean…I usually don't do that…" His shoulders hunched together in an obvious wince as it became increasingly apparent that that actually had been the best defense he could muster.

His inhaled and cleared his throat and tried again, despite the lobster color that was, once again, consuming his face. Ah, humility. He supposed that a good dose couldn't hurt. "I…" He breathed again. "Sorry." Clark wished that one of his superpowers involved floors swallowing him whole at will.

"It's okay," Lois said when she decided he had sputtered piteously long enough Then, she thought for a moment. Of the many people who richly deserved her wrath, Smallville didn't even crack the top half. Perhaps…Just this once…She would give him a break? "I've had a genuinely terrible day, Smallville, and it was very…chivalrous of you to apologize. So, why don't you buy me some ice cream and both of us can attempt to forget this morning?"

It occurred to her in a vague sort of way that thirty words should never make someone _that_ happy, but something of that sincere grin seeped into her bones and she smiled back, for a second.

He was sort of cute, she decided. Almost like a puppy that needed no excuse at all to climb into your lap and lick your face, or the across-the-street-boy who had given you your first-ever valentine. Yes, she confirmed, she liked him exactly the same way she liked puppies. Provided, of course, they left her carpet intact.

"I can just fl--I mean, drive you right over to this really great little Mom and Pop shop, or you can take your own car." He offered.

"I took the bus today," she informed him unceremoniously, and attempted to ignore that this news delighted him still further.

She looped her arm through his as they walked down the street towards the parking garage. On the way down, her heel became caught in a sidewalk crack and she went flying briefly, not the stomach-dropping flying of the very best dreams, but the imminent face-plant flying of real life.

He caught her, even though she would have sworn that he was in the precise _wrong_ position to do so. "Easy there," he said with a smile down at her.

In that moment, something hit her as hard and undeniably as déjà vu, and she would have sworn that it had all happened before, the fall, the hold, and that smile. She stopped dead in the middle of a busy sidewalk and, ignoring the swearing and yelling of those who forced their way past her, looked Clark up and down.

Where did she know all of that from? She wracked her mind for the barest of moments, and then filed it away. It would come to her, she was sure, if she just let it be for a while. In the mean time…Rocky Road or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?


End file.
